


And They Come Back

by XtaticPearl



Series: Tumblr prompt works [14]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Avengers: Endgame (Movie) Spoilers, Gen, Male-Female Friendship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-12
Updated: 2019-06-12
Packaged: 2020-05-02 02:52:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,574
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19190464
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/XtaticPearl/pseuds/XtaticPearl
Summary: People always needed to come back to their families and two friends at a kitchen table find a moment to think about it.





	And They Come Back

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt: things you said at the kitchen table

There was a half-empty jar of messily opened blackcurrant jam holding down the reports of the last space patrol. If he hadn't wanted to bring attention to his hyperfixation problem, Tony was going to have to ignore the smidge of jam that had somehow found itself outside the jar and was slowly sliding down towards the white paper. He should be looking away right about now, anytime soon back to his own data - any second now, he'd focus -

"Sandwich?" he heard in thinly veiled amusement and looked up to see Natasha throwing him a tease of a grin as she bit into her own hastily put-together disaster.

"I think I prefer the days when you used to be an extreme Type A personality," he commented even as he shook his head at her offer, "Did we throw out all the paperweights? Are the jams our new stationary now?"

"Okay, make your own sandwich then," she took a bigger bite and leaned back against her chair, stretching her back, "Did you know that Nebula's handwriting resembles Steve's when he had two broken wrists?"

"She's used to tech, and Cap wrote with his _mouth_ so that doesn't count as handwriting," Tony bit back a curse as he leaned forward to remove the jar from the papers, ignoring his companion's snort, "It's like you and Clint switched places, jeez."

There was no reply and Tony visualized stepping on a live mine, the image a little too vivid in his imagination. He didn't need to glance at her to know that she had begun pretending that her sandwich and notes were far too interesting. It was a rare trait of hers but Tony had seen it come through at odd times. Avoidance wasn't the strangest fault to have for emotionally mangled heroes and Natasha still hadn't fixed her hair colour so Tony wouldn't pronouncing her completely okay. 

It would be a lucky day if any of then were really but - it was Natasha. He always did have a complicated web with her. They were each other's devil in some ways, too close and not quite easy. 

"How's your kid?" 

"Morgan," Tony reminded with a quick look at Nat but she didn't look like she had forgotten. She wasn't the forgetting type in a lot of things and this didn't surprise him. 

"Morgan," she nodded, wiping a line of crumbs off her plate before licking them off her finger without pause. Tony didn't even grimace this time though his hand did have the itch to reach for a towel that wasn't nearby. Messy eaters weren't new for him nowadays. 

"She's smart," he swiped the holoscreen to the right and began working on the next sheet, "tenacious, quick learner and well inclined towards frighteningly good manipulative skills. Probably going to make investors cry if she ever entered a boardroom."

"Not what I meant," Natasha rolled her eyes lightly but Tony caught the relaxed lines of her face and wondered how much it had taken to make the Black Widow give away her tics so easily. What amount of loss was too much for someone who had grown up with loss as the only survival? 

_I don't want to go Mr. Stark, please -_

"I know," Tony quirked a small smile at her before inhaling on a thoughtful pause, "She's curious. Fine mostly but - curious."

"Does she know?" Natasha's fingers rested on her raised knee, drawing an absentminded arrowhead on her pants, "About this?"

"She knows that I'm going on a heist," Tony could still hear the million questions she had asked when they had discussed it, "the time travel part is still being denied. Until proven, I suppose."

He got a quiet hum in response and Tony let it rest, both of them working in a long-lost silence in the kitchen. They had done this before, when the Tower still had a team and both their hairstyles were less unkempt. A clearer time, stacked against every new mission that seemed possible for the invincible. She'd sit with her tea and he'd down some coffee, both of them playing their parts in making the team run. 

He wasn't sure if they had ever expected to be this back then. He wasn't sure if _this_ was that bad. A bit messy but - it felt more real. 

"She knows you'll come back, right?" Natasha asked and Tony paused with a finger on the screen, eyes locking onto her face across the table. 

"What?"

"She knows you'll -"

"I heard you, Nat," Tony hesitated before pushing the screen away, letting the barriers fall. There was a lock of red on her forehead and she didn't seem to notice. 

"She should know," Natasha was quieter than before but the air was too devoid of clogged words, free for new ones to fill them up, "Families should know that it - people will come back home."

Lila. Cooper. Nathan. Laura. Nick. The list was endless and Tony didn't say a single name from them. She had them on her tongue, behind her teeth always anyway. 

"You'll come back," she looked up at him, looking away from the table and Tony could see the unflinching Avenger in her eyes. Tempered by fire. Desperate for the dead. 

"Nat -"

"You'll come back, Tony," she repeated and it was a promise to herself or to him or to a friend she was unsuccessfully avoiding - it didn't matter. It was the only thing that kept her going. It was going to drive her crazy and Tony stared at her before nodding with an exhale. 

"I know"

"We'll make sure of it," he could hear the _I_ instead of we but he nodded again. They were all lost kids in tired bodies. 

"They'll all come back," he added and maybe they were both liars but there were times when that was all they had. A few beautiful lies. She nodded in return and her smile was as sad as the last one but it was still there. 

"Hey, do you cook?" she asked after a skipped beat, dusting crumbs off her shirt. 

"Yes"

"Better than Steve?"

"Anybody cooks better than Steve. _You_ cook better than Steve," Tony laughed when she made to throw the butter knife at him, "You know that Bruce's tacos are still there somewhere, right?"

"I want something else," she stood up from her chair and wiped her hands on the back of her pants. This time Tony winced but it only made her grin. "Something chewy."

"I'm definitely sure that Scott has Gummy Bears with him," Tony offered, biting back a grin of his own at her answering scowl. 

"I'm not completely Clint"

"Oh, we're talking about him now? He exists?" Tony blinked innocently at her before shrugging a shoulder when she shot him a look, "I avoided Steve for five years, I'm not blind."

"You avoided Steve for _seven_ years. You're both dumb," she corrected but he could detect the tired fondness in her tone. They found the strangest things to feel that emotion for. "I'm not avoiding Clint. I'm the one who brought him here, remember?"

"A lot of people seem to remember a lot of different things," he noted and made a face at her pointed look, "I know, trust me I know. But you've gotta see - he's messed up, Natasha."

"He's fit for the mission," her eyes narrowed a little but Tony had learnt to be friends with intimidation a long time ago so he simply nodded. 

"That I know," he agreed, leaning back a little, "but I'm not talking about the mission. You know that."

She looked like she was about to argue for a beat but then she took a breath. It wasn't a reprimand and they both knew it. There was no surefire way of dealing with guilt on this level either. But this was Clint and he had adopted them as his mess at different points of time. 

People always needed to come back to their families and sometimes that meant the family making more than just the first step. 

"Do farmhouses make people - this?" Natasha pointed to all of Tony and he could see the familiarity, the warmth behind the teasing. 

"The word you're looking for is _wise_ ," he suggested and caught it in time when she threw the butter knife this time, the aim conveniently off, "Rude."

"You missed this," she declared with a light huff and Tony rolled his eyes but didn't stop the small smile stealing over his face. 

"Go raid some tacos and let me work," he countered and put the knife on the table, "Slob, God."

Natasha walked over and Tony didn't look up but relaxed his shoulder when she squeezed it tightly. There was no tremor in her touch and there wouldn't be, not really for someone as trained as her, but he had worn enough masks to read beyond it. 

Reaching up with his left hand, he squeezed her wrist once and let it go. 

"Come back after you're done, okay?" he said and maybe it was too soft, too true, but it was out there and it was just them. And maybe they needed it to be said out loud sometimes. 

Natasha squeezed once more, gentler this time, and her hand slipped away from his shoulder as she stepped forward. 

"Always," she promised before leaving and Tony didn't turn back. 

She'd come back once she had finished what she needed to. They all did. 

 


End file.
